


The Curses Transmuted

by the_musical_alchemist



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Study, Gen, free-verse, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8197682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_musical_alchemist/pseuds/the_musical_alchemist
Summary: That’s what it means to live in this world. To stifle one’s pride when it’s louder than caution. To transmute failure into wisdom.Some thoughts on Ed, Al, Roy, Riza, and Winry. Happy FMA Day <3





	

A young boy once harnessed the gift of ambition. Drunk off his arrogance, his careful planning was all at once so reckless. Man couldn’t touch the sun, so he opted to be better than human. He was an alchemist, transmuting new wings out of the charred feathers of those who failed before him. This gift was his virtue and his sin as well. **  
**

And so he flew.

And so he was burned.

And so he fell.

But he’s somehow alive.

He trudges on with a singed feather in his pocket. It keeps him grounded. It reminds him of his mortality. He never tries to fly again. Instead, he runs, no longer in pursuit of the sun, but toward the light it casts over the world. He is nothing if not another inconsequential piece of it.

But it doesn’t keep him from wanting or searching or fighting. Perhaps it’s the scientist in him who is restless. He is stronger than his blackened wings, but he is still so small.

That’s what it means to live in this world. To stifle one’s pride when it’s louder than caution. To transmute failure into wisdom.

* * *

A young man was once given the gift of poison. He ran his palms across blood-red ink branded into the skin of a girl who buried her pain in hope. They carried this secret as one when the ink stained his hands, tying them together like a single noose around their necks.

Her darkest fears were his most powerful weapon. His poison was as lethal as the bullets from her gun. They abandoned their souls, forsaking their humanity for meaningless sins they would soon spend the rest of their lives failing to atone for.

“Burn it off,” she begged when the ink on his hands was indistinguishable from the blood.

“Burn it off,” she wept when she discarded her shirt, baring herself to him yet again.

“Burn it off!” she cried when he hesitated, staring at his tainted hands, trying to remember how they got to this point. How he could have ever betrayed her. How he could have become the very monster he joined the military to slay.

So he complied to her orders and in exchange, she vowed to follow him, recollecting the dreams they’d damn near lost in the warzone.

“I’ll protect you,” she told him, “so long as you protect the world.”

And he will. He’ll march onward, pulling white gloves over his blood-red hands. He’ll change the world. Who better to kill a monster than a monster himself?

* * *

A young girl once learned the gift of revival. Life bled through her fingertips and onto her creations. All of herself went into the lives of others. She walked across the desert, leaving flower petals in her path so the destitute would be able to find their way back to her.

The world was a cruel thief, collecting her loved ones and leaving her behind. But she never surrendered to her grief, nor did she resent the world for it. Because while it gave her reasons to suffer, it also gave her reasons to smile.

Her hands were those of a creator. She didn’t know how to destroy, only to give life. She picked up the broken remains of her family and strangers alike and taught them how to walk on legs she constructed for them.

She cries not for herself, but for everyone who can’t. She scatters the petals of every flower she has ever found across the desert ground, blanketing the pale sand in her vibrant colors.

Her strength is transcendent and it lives in everyone she crosses.

* * *

A young boy once lost the gift of warmth. He was a brilliant fool who allowed his desires to guide him astray. A lonely child desperate for his mother’s lost embrace.

Suspended in a void of blinding white, he felt all that made him human unspool like thread. He was lucky to have survived, but could one call this existence living? He was grateful even for that. To reject this life would have been to reject the sacrifices made to get him there. He was anything but numb to the pain his brother endured for them both.

Still, he allows himself to be selfish only under the night sky’s scrutiny. He can no longer dream, no longer cry, no longer remember the warmth he hadn’t had the foresight to appreciate before it was taken from him. He balances his soul on hands that feel nothing, swallowing the fear that one day that will leave him too.

But he won’t give up.

He is a fool, but he is an alchemist too. Pain breeds wisdom and wisdom breeds courage. This young boy loved with every piece of himself and would never take his second chance for granted.

His heart is gentle. His will is strong. His hands are numb but he won’t lose grip on his dreams. He will continue to fight until the day he feels the sunlight again.


End file.
